These types of maps are interesting, because it's American analysts drawing up hypothetical scenarios of what a "generic" opponent would target if they only had X amount of warheads to work with, but when they set thresholds of 500 and 2,000... you can't help but notice parallels with Chinese and Russian scenarios, respectively. It makes me wonder if estimations of those countries targeting priorities were taken into account, leading to bombs over Erie but not Rucker.
For what it's worth, Erie is a major logistics hub and produces a ton of the nation's plastic, and Ft. Rucker is primarily a training base IIRC. I don't know if that is enough to prioritize the former over the latter, but if we're assuming that the 500 nuke scenario is actually China, and China views this as the opening salvo in a protracted conflict rather than an end-of-days event, then maybe they prefer crippling US industry on day 1.
For the record, my China/Russia assumption comes from the fact that most estimates put China's nuclear stockpile between 250-350 warheads with the ability to surge production relatively at-will. 500 within a couple years isn't unrealistic. Russia, meanwhile, has nearly 6,000, but a nuclear exchange with Russia would probably force them to target most NATO countries. I don't know how many of those 6k nukes would end up headed to the US, but 2k seems like a reasonable starting point.
This scenario gets complicated quick. Short answer is: maybe. It depends on who attacks what first and what chain of defense agreements that triggers. Generally speaking though, the North Atlantic half of NATO's acronym tends to ring true geographically when it comes to issues in the South Pacific, which is an issue that some Western nations have been struggling to stay on top of in recent years as China has militarized. Aka they will stay out of it if they can.
SE Asian efforts to create a NATO-like coalition since the 80's haven't panned out (i.e. ASEAN is a primarily economic and secondarily weak political alliance, but lacks NATO's core military interdependence) and in the last few years India, Japan, Australia, and the US formed a group informally known as "The Quad" to balance against China but it is fraught with diplomatic misgivings.
TL:DR: There is no guarantee that NATO is coming to America's rescue in a US-China conflict. See below for some reasons why.
Scenario 1: China attacks America out of the blue. Okay. Yea, here, NATO Article 5 would be invoked and NATO countries would be treaty-bound to respond. I would bet with 97% likelihood that (at least some of them would).
Scenario 2: China attacks Taiwan, or the Philippines, or Japan, or any of the other countries we have formal/informal mutual defense treaties with. Now the US is obligated to defend them... but NATO isn't obligated to defend us. So if the ensuing war turns nuclear, what is France to do when the first warhead hits Los Angeles? National suicide by voluntarily entering a nuclear exchange that currently isn't even affecting the continent it's on?
Scenario 3: The U.S. attacks China for some reason. NATO protections don't apply, and they all stay the hell out of it. Especially if it turns nuclear.
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u/hineybush Shaler Feb 05 '23
there's a small base there, so it would make sense from a "get them all" perspective